This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
Love provides the motive, the energy for discipline. It is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own, or another's, spiritual growth.
Discipline | Energy | Growth | Love | Purpose | Purpose | Will |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
The root of honesty is an honest intention, the distinct and deliberate purpose to be true, to handle facts as they are, and not as we wish them to be. Facts lend themselves to manipulation. Many a butcher’s hand is worth more than its weight in gold. What we want things to be, we come to see them to be; and the tailor pulls the coat and the truth into a perfect fit from his point of view.
Gold | Honesty | Intention | Purpose | Purpose | Truth | Worth |
The meaning of life is that we love one another. The purpose of our lives, it seems to me, is to learn how to do that, so we can create a world where everyone’s in love with everyone all the time. That would be Heaven on earth.
Earth | Heaven | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Time | World | Learn |
Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.
Acceptance | Experience | Fear | Journey | Love | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Reality |
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
Even if the Universe existed for man’s sake and man existed for the purpose of serving God, one must still ask: What is the end of serving God? He does not become more perfect if all His creatures serve Him. Nor would he lose anything if nothing existed beside Him. It might perhaps be replied that the service of God is not intended for God’s perfection, but for our own. Then, however, the question arises: What is the object of our being perfect? Pressing the inquiry as to the purpose of Creation, we must at last arrive at the answer: it was the will of God. Logic as well as tradition prove clearly that the Universe does not exist for man’s sake, but that all things in it exist each for its own sake.
God | Inquiry | Logic | Man | Nothing | Object | Perfection | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Service | Tradition | Universe | Will | God |
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, born Mahesh Prasad Varma
Physics has discovered the edge of infinity; the wisdom of the ages takes us across the border, which is nowhere but in us. When each person rejoins the stream of evolution that upholds the galaxies ands sweeps life forward on the wave of eternity, human existence will cease to contain any suffering, and our real purpose in living - to create heaven on earth - will be realized.
Earth | Eternity | Evolution | Existence | Heaven | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering | Will | Wisdom |
God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race - to enlarge our hearts, to make us unselfish, and full of kindly sympathies and affections; to give our souls higher aims, and to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion; to bring round our fireside bright faces and happy smiles, and loving, tender hearts. My soul blesses the Great Father every day, that He has gladdened the earth with little children.
Aims | Children | Day | Earth | Father | God | Happy | Little | Purpose | Purpose | Race | Soul |
To read to good purpose we must read a great deal, and be content not to use a great deal of what we read.
Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber
The earning of more and more money, combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life... is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs.
Enjoyment | Individual | Life | Life | Man | Means | Money | Purpose | Purpose | Thought | Happiness | Thought |
Michael Jackson, fully Michael Joseph Jackson, aka MJ or King of Pop
The meaning of life is contained in every single expression of life. It is present in the infinity of forms and phenomena that exist in all of creation... Each of us arrives on this planet with a purpose. To fulfill that purpose is to ignite the spark of divinity in us and give meaning to our lives.
Divinity | Life | Life | Meaning | Phenomena | Present | Purpose | Purpose |
Michael Toms and Justine Willis Toms
As you are able to give energy to your passion, purpose will emerge. Clarity of purpose comes from honoring what gives your life meaning. Work has become devoid of meaning because people are asked to follow instructions rather than their creativity. True work is an expression of following our inner voice, heeding the spiritual call, and living your passion.
Creativity | Energy | Life | Life | Meaning | Passion | People | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Work | Following |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
Just as we have learned to separate ourselves from each other and from the environment, we now need to learn how to reunite ourselves with other entities around us without losing our hard-won individuality. The most promising faith for the future might be based on the realization that the entire universe is a system related by common laws and that it makes no sense to impose our dreams and desires on nature without taking them into account. Recognizing the limitations of human will, accepting a cooperative rather than a ruling role in the universe, we should feel the relief of the exile who is finally returning home. The problem of meaning will then be resolved as the individual's purpose merges with the universal flow.
Dreams | Faith | Future | Individual | Individuality | Meaning | Nature | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | System | Universe | Will | Learn |
Morrie Schwartz, fully Morris "Morrie" S. Schwartz
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning in your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
Important | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Purpose | Purpose | Wrong | Think |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
In the lives of many people it is possible to find a unifying purpose that justifies the things they do day in, day out – a goal that like a magnetic field attracts their psychic energy, a goal upon which all lesser goals depend… Without such a purpose, even the best-ordered consciousness lacks meaning.
Consciousness | Day | Energy | Goals | Meaning | People | Purpose | Purpose |